Tvorog in France: where to buy it, what it's called, what to use instead

We checked this page on 6 October 2026 against the supermarket chains’ catalogues and the shops’ own pages, and went back over the online shops on 17 October, product pages and delivery pages alike.

Is there tvorog in France, and what is it called?

You won’t find anything labelled tvorog on a French supermarket shelf, but its close relatives are in every big chain: fromage blanc, faisselle and cottage cheese. French Wikipedia puts tvorog, German Quark and fromage blanc in the same family of fresh cheeses. The difference is water. Fromage blanc is only lightly drained and often whipped, which is why it’s runnier and smoother than ours. Faisselle, on the other hand, drains right there in its perforated pot, so the curds stay lumpy.

Real tvorog under its own name does turn up in France, but it’s imported: Open Food Facts lists Polish twaróg from Mlekovita and Biomlek as sold in France. Look for it in Russian and Eastern European shops. And outside Paris, in Jouy-en-Josas, the Ferme de Viltain dairy sells its own “Tvorog 350g”. We haven’t found a farm like that in the South.

German Quark never turned up for us in ordinary French shops. Only protein desserts with fruit and sweeteners, and those are no use for cooking. Online, though, it’s a different story: the AKHTAMAR shop files its tvorog under exactly that word, Rodnaja Derewnja Quark 15% (250 g) and 30% (370 g), both in stock on 17 October 2026. Type tvorog into its search and you get nothing.

What should you look for on the label?

Start with the words about texture. “De campagne”, “moulé à la louche” and “faisselle” promise lumps, while “battu” and “lisse” mean a whipped, smooth mass. “Caillé” is curd that was never drained at all: it floats in its whey, one stage before tvorog. And “mousse … sur fromage blanc” on a label means a dessert with a layer of whipped cream on top.

Fat is given for the whole product, after the letters MG (matière grasse), and on the shelves you’ll see 0%, 3-3.2% and 7-7.8%. If a French recipe asks for fromage blanc at “20%” or “40%”, that’s the old system, which measured fat in the dry matter. “20%” is roughly today’s 3.5%, “40%” matches 7-8%, and since 2007 fat has had to be stated on the weight of the finished product. By the GOST standard for tvorog, a 7-8% fromage blanc would count as “classic” tvorog. And don’t trust the number in the product name: Délisse at E.Leclerc sells something called “Faisselle 6%”, yet the official name on the same pack gives 3.7% fat.

The most reliable guide is protein, in the nutrition table per 100 g: the more protein, the drier the curd and the closer it is to tvorog. On 6 October 2026 we put these tables side by side using Open Food Facts (a database that shoppers fill in themselves). Faisselle came out at 3.3 to 4.3 g of protein, fromage blanc at 4.5 to 7.8 g, Milbona cottage cheese at 10.5 g and the Catalan mato at 11.5 g. Polish Biomlek twaróg has 16 g. That’s the whole difference in a nutshell.

In the shop, fromage blanc and faisselle sit in the dairy aisle next to the yoghurts (on the Auchan website the section is called Crèmerie, Ultra frais). Ricotta and brousse are in the self-service cheese section. Cottage cheese is hit and miss: in the Auchan catalogue Danone’s sits next to the fromage blanc, while Président’s is with the cheeses.

What can you use instead of tvorog, and when doesn’t it work?

For syrniki (little fried tvorog pancakes), vareniki (dumplings) and vatrushka, buy faisselle or fromage blanc de campagne and leave it overnight in muslin in the fridge so the whey drains off. For zapekanka, a baked tvorog pudding, a richer fromage blanc is enough, and for cheesecake ricotta or cottage cheese will do. What doesn’t work: salty spreadable cheeses like St Môret, and creamy petit-suisse.

• Syrniki. Faisselle or fromage blanc de campagne, just not battu or lisse, overnight in muslin or a tea towel. French Wikipedia’s article on syrniki gives the same advice: you need a dryish fromage blanc, like tvorog, and drained faisselle or ricotta can stand in for it.
• Zapekanka and tvorog tart. A richer fromage blanc (7.8% MG on the label, au lait entier or de campagne) or faisselle, drained for a few hours. You can swap some of the flour for semolina, which here is called semoule. The French have their own baked desserts on fresh cheese too: the Alsatian flan pâtissier au fromage blanc and the flaune from Aveyron, which is made with sheep’s-milk recuite.
• Vareniki and blinchiki (thin filled pancakes). Drained faisselle or fromage blanc de campagne plus an egg yolk, or drained ricotta. A wet filling holds badly in dough, so this is where tvorog from a Russian shop beats any substitute.
• Vatrushka (an open bun with a tvorog filling). Tvorog from a Russian shop, or drained faisselle with egg and sugar. The dough can be ready-made yeast dough: in July 2026 chat members saw yeast dough for pirozhki at La Belle Russie (29 bd Louis Blanc in Montpellier, by the Corum).
• Paskha (the Easter tvorog dessert). Tvorog from a Russian or Eastern European shop. Faisselle and fromage blanc will work too, but first they’re pressed in a cloth under a weight and pushed through a sieve twice.
• Cheesecake. Ricotta (Galbani’s 250 g tub at Auchan, for instance), cottage cheese or drained fromage blanc. For a New York-style one, people use a cream cheese like St Môret.
• With a spoon, jam or honey. Any fromage blanc nature, faisselle or skyr, and petit-suisse for the kids. The French eat faisselle this way themselves: sweet, with jam or honey, and sometimes savoury, with herbs and garlic.
• In salads and on bread. Cottage cheese, which is simply grainy tvorog. Just remember that in France it comes salted.

Now for what won’t stand in for tvorog. St Môret and the other fromages frais à tartiner are salty and rich (St Môret has 17.8 g of fat per 100 g), and so is the Moroccan jben from Jaouda (21 g). Petit-suisse is too runny and creamy, with about 10 g of fat per 100 g. The “mousse … sur fromage blanc” desserts have a layer of whipped cream on top. Keep all of these out of syrniki and zapekanka. Brousse is fine in a filling, but it’s lightly salted (0.6% salt in La Fermière’s), so allow for that in anything sweet.

How much does tvorog cost in France?

A rough figure for 2026: about €9 a kilo, with prices running from €7 to €13. That’s 9 prices from 4 online shops selling Russian food, as listed on the shops’ websites on 17 October 2026, delivery not included. Shop prices change, so take it as a ballpark rather than a price list.

Where can you buy tvorog in the South of France?

In the South, real tvorog is sold by Russian and Eastern European shops: we’ve confirmed it in Montpellier, Nice, Marseille, Avignon, Aix-en-Provence and Perpignan. In Montpellier one of the shops that stock it is our community partner, and we go there ourselves. Fromage blanc or faisselle is in the range of every big chain, from Aldi to Monoprix.

Montpellier. Épicerie Arménie, 5 rue Anatole France, by the Observatoire tram stop: a community partner, we shop there ourselves. According to the owner (September 2026), the range includes tvorog and kefir, plus braided string cheese and pelmeni. Épicerie Victoria at 6 rue Fontenille opened in summer 2025, and on the very first day our members went along and came back praising the prices. Tvorog arrives there in batches: on 19 September 2025 the shop posted “Natural tvorog back in stock” on its Telegram channel, and on 30 December it announced a two-day offer there, “buy 5 tvorogs and get the 6th free”. Hours are on the Montpellier shops page.

Nice. We’ve confirmed tvorog at Ani Mini Market (5 avenue de la Californie) and at Nestinarka (42 rue Smollett). The city’s other shops are on the Nice shops page, with hours wherever we could confirm them.

Marseille. Tvorog is confirmed in both Anahit shops, at 11-13 boulevard de la Liberté and at 165 boulevard de Pont de Vivaux. The Polish Delicepol (Sklep Polski, 5 place Pierre Roux) doesn’t have anything sold as tvorog: its catalogue lists Polish fromage blanc, and on 17 October 2026 only one of its four lines (400 g) was in stock, the rest marked “Indisponible”. One thing to watch for: Anahit’s catalogue labels its imported tvorog “Brousse (tvorog)” and “Brousse de vache (Tvorog)”. So in a Russian shop, brousse on the price tag may well be tvorog rather than the Provençal cheese. The Marseille addresses are in our directory of Russian shops, and before you set off, ask in the chat what’s on the shelf right now.

Avignon, Aix-en-Provence, Perpignan. In Avignon tvorog is sold by Épicerie Matriochka (17 boulevard Sixte Isnard), in Aix-en-Provence by NOY Market (1 boulevard Victor Coq) and in Perpignan by Alenka (35 boulevard Félix Mercader). Details are in the same directory. Perpignan also has a substitute of its own: the Cimelait cooperative in Err makes Catalan mato, as well as fromage blanc and faisselle. Mato shows up in the Intermarché catalogue for the Pyrénées-Orientales and on the Super U website, but we haven’t checked whether any particular shop has it.

Toulouse. We haven’t yet confirmed tvorog in any Russian shop here. Ask in the chat before you go (the addresses are on the Toulouse shops page) or order tvorog by post, more on that below.

As for the ordinary chains, nearly all of them sell faisselle: Rians at Carrefour and Super U, Délisse at E.Leclerc, Pâturages at Intermarché, and own-brand versions at Auchan, Monoprix and Super U. We found lumpy fromage blanc de campagne from Délisse at E.Leclerc, and the Auchan catalogue has the same thing from Ferme Collet in a 2 kg tub. According to Open Food Facts, Lidl sometimes has faisselle de Bresse and Milbona cottage cheese, but the range there changes. We haven’t checked what’s in stock at particular branches. And don’t panic if the Auchan website says “plus dans la gamme”: until you pick a store, it puts that note on every product going.

Sheep’s-milk faisselle (faisselle de brebis) is in the Biocoop catalogue: 450 g, made in the Ariège. Grand Frais gives it a page of its own on its website: “texture légèrement granuleuse” and a stronger flavour than cow’s-milk faisselle. There are Grand Frais shops in the South, for example in Montpellier, Béziers, Nîmes and Alès. Don’t bother looking for tvorog at Picard, though: on 6 October 2026 a search for “fromage blanc” on Picard’s website brought up only ready meals made with it.

Can you order tvorog online for delivery in France?

You can, but it works out expensive. Two shops send tvorog all over France: Katucha in Metz (15%, 275 g) and AKHTAMAR in Strasbourg (Quark 15%, 250 g, with no cold-chain rules). In a test basket on 6 October 2026, getting one pack from Katucha to a pickup point in Montpellier came to €7.25. Anahit in Marseille delivers tvorog only within its own zone.

Katucha (Metz). Colissimo anywhere in France, up to 20 kg per order. Orders with fresh food go out only on a Monday or a Tuesday, by ordinary Colissimo, and the website doesn’t say a word about insulated packaging. Besides the 15% tvorog there are 2% and 30% versions. The delivery page publishes no rates: the charge depends on weight, and no free-delivery threshold is mentioned (there wasn’t one in the basket on 6 October either). We filled a test basket for postcode 34000 without paying: on 6 October 2026 a single pack would have cost €7.25 to a pickup point and €10.50 to the door. We haven’t been able to recheck those figures since, because the site has shut its basket to robots. So order enough for several recipes at once, or club together with your neighbours.

AKHTAMAR (Strasbourg). Ships across mainland France. Tvorog sits in the catalogue under the German name Quark: Rodnaja Derewnja 15% in 250 g and 30% in 370 g, both in stock on 17 October 2026. A search for tvorog won’t find it, and the terms of sale on the site are still an empty template, with nothing on cold packaging, insulation or delivery times. Write to the shop before you order. The site doesn’t publish its delivery rates openly; what we saw in the basket on 6 October 2026 (about €5 up to 2 kg, free from €100) hasn’t been rechecked since.

Anahit (Marseille). The shop does its own deliveries, within 10 km of a city. Its delivery page names 12 cities (Marseille, Vitrolles, La Ciotat, Toulon, Draguignan, Fréjus, Cannes, Nice, Gardanne, Aix, Salon-de-Provence and Martigues), but when we went through checkout on 6 October 2026 Marseille was the only one you could select. Montpellier and the rest of Occitanie aren’t on the list. In the catalogue tvorog is labelled “Brousse (tvorog)”. The rate on 6 October was €10 per order, free from €100; these days it only appears after you fill in the delivery form, so we haven’t rechecked it.

Slavmarket (Paris). The catalogue has a section called “Творог · Fromage cottage”, but the site shows no prices and orders go only through the pomo.bio marketplace, which gives the delivery area as Paris and Île-de-France. Not an option for the South.

At La Maison Russe in Saumur, a search for “tvorog” on 6 October found only paskha moulds. And several online shops from old lists don’t work at all: one no longer opens, and another has turned into a blog about travel and visas. The online shop Prestige Russe had orders suspended on 6 October, while its home page carries an undated banner saying it delivers all over France. Check before you order.

Seen tvorog somewhere we haven’t listed, or has a shop stopped stocking it? Tell us in the chat, and we’ll check again and fix the page.